"You've finally been granted your Pokémon Trainer's license. Now, it's time to head out to become the world's greatest Pokémon Trainer. It's going to take all you've got to collect 150 Pokémon in this enormous world...can you develop the ultimate Pokémon strategy to defeat the eight Gym Leaders and become the greatest Pokémon Master of all time?"

It should be noted that in Japan, the first two games were released as Red and Green. Blue was released later as a third version, with a bit of a graphical improvement over the originals. For the international releases, the names Red and Blue were used. Although the Japanese Blue provided the graphics and game script for translation, the Japanese Red and Green provided the wild and version-exclusive Pokémon for the international Red and Blue respectively. Aside from its codebase, this makes the Japanese Blue the only main series game to lack an international release.

As evidence of its incredible popularity, Pokémon Yellow was later released as a fourth version in Japan in 1998, and as a third international version in 1999. Yellow took elements from the TV series and transported them back into the games, however loosely. Instead of picking one of the usual trio, a wild Pikachu ends up as your starter, and follows you everywhere rather than getting into the usual Poké Ball. The familiar Team Rocket trio also show up, although Meowth acts as a normal mon as opposed to an equal member to Jesse and James, acting as the third member in their party alongside Ekans/Arbok and Koffing/Weezing (but like your Pikachu, he slides into battle rather than be released from a Poké Ball).

After a successful run, Red, Blue, and Yellow were followed by the Game Boy Color-enhanced (though they can still be played on a previous incarnation of the Game Boy, as well as later ones) Pokémon Gold and Silver, taking place three years after Red became champion and featuring that kid from Johto mentioned above, the return of Team Rocket, and improved the graphics that Yellow didn't (back sprites, etc.).

Jump ahead a couple gens, and Red and Blue reappeared once more in the form of their Video Game Remakes on the Game Boy Advance: FireRed and LeafGreen. These allowed players to relive the classic games with many of the new benefits, tweaks, and balances of the second and third generations, though it took some Retconning here and there, and added in some new areas to explore after finishing the familiar challenge(s).

These games have received two animated adaptations. The first one is the first season of the main Pokémon anime. The second one is the anime special Mini Series titled Pokémon Origins, which aired on October 2, 2013 in Japan (10 days prior to the release of the tie-in games Pokémon X and Y) and November 2013 in the United States. This miniseries essentially serves as a more accurate depiction of the plot of Red and Blue/Green, being a Truer to the TextAnime of the Game in comparison to the main Pokémon anime.

On November 12th, it was announced that Red, Blue, and Yellow would be making their way to the Nintendo 3DS's Virtual Console in the eShop in celebration of the franchise's 20th Anniversary. Trading and battling with other players was retained by modding them to work with the system's local wireless functionality, while the Restore Points option is disabled. Pokémon caught in the Virtual Console versions can also be transferred to future mainline Pokémon games, starting with 2016's Pokémon Sun and Moon, via Pokémon Bank. They were released on February 27th, 2016, exactly 20 years after their release in Japan.

Another detail worth noting is that many of the tropes listed under Red and Blue's category also apply to Yellow, FireRed, and LeafGreen.

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Tropes used in Red and Blue

Abandoned Laboratory: Pokémon Mansion on Cinnabar Island. It was where Mewtwo was cloned from Mew, and has since been abandoned. Now it is infested with Fire and Poison-type Pokémon, along with some rogue scientists and burglars picking through the remains.

Played straight for standard trainers and wild Pokémon, who tend to use moves at random. Winning your very first battle against your rival essentially comes down to luck for this reason, as they can either attack or use a status lowering move. Whether you will win comes down to how much they will use their non-directly damaging move. (Getting the potion from your PC turns it from whether you're lucky enough to win to whether you're lucky enough to keep your potion to use later.)

Averted by high-level trainers who are programmed to use whatever move has the best type advantage above all others, even before considering whether or not that move actually does damage. This is especially noticeable with the Elite Four, where you can see their Pokémon use nothing but non-damaging Psychic-type moves (like Agility, Amnesia, and Barrier,) simply because you brought out a Fighting or Poison type.

All There in the Manual: The manual explains the basic background of you and your rival, states your age, and tells of the events that lead up to the start of your adventure.

Alphabet Soup Cans: Blaine's gym features quiz questions which you must answer correctly in order to open doors. Naturally, they are all about Pokémon. If you get them wrong, you must instead battle a trainer. (Many players prefer to do this because battling the trainer gets you valuable experience and money note This is altered a bit in Yellow, where all the trainers will refuse to challenge you until you intentionally get the questions wrong apart from the Super Nerd in the second room (who does not have a question and can be fought right away or skipped over) .)

Always Accurate Attack: Swift is specifically coded to never miss. Exact Words applies, because this also means it can hit Pokémon that are in the invulnerable phases of Fly and Dig, which is otherwise impossible and doesn't apply for later generations.

Always Someone Better: Played with when it comes to your rival. Throughout the game, he is always at least one step ahead of you, such as on the SS Anne when he brags about having captured 40 Pokémon when you're lucky to have half that number (It is possible, but would require massive Level Grinding to evolve every Pokémon you can catch and/or trade from another game). However, you can avert it by beating him in every battle you have, showing that you are the more skilled trainer. Even after he becomes Champion, you show up to end his reign very quickly.

Amazon Brigade: Erika's gym is populated entirely by female trainers. This means the (male) Gym guide can't be found there, and is hanging out in the Rocket Game Corner instead.

The Anime of the Game: While of course they were the inspiration for the long running Pokémon anime, there is also the miniseries Pokémon Origins, based more closely on Red and Blue than the main anime is.

Antidote Effect: In general, because you can only carry 20 types of itemnote You could carry up to 99 of a single item, like Potions or Poké Balls, but there were only 20 inventory slots, it is wise to carry as little as you could get away with. You could store up to 50 additional items in the PC, but this can only be accessed while in Pokémon Centers, not out in the world. A few specific examples:

Awakenings become useless as soon as you get the Poké Flute. It will wake Pokémon up inside or out of battle, and has no limit.

Once Full Heals become available for purchase, most of the single-effect healing items (Antidotes, Paralyze Heals, Burn Heals, etc.) are no longer worth carrying. While more expensive than any of them individually, carrying a stack of Full Heals only takes up one precious inventory slot and could cover any effect you come across.

Apathetic Citizens: Starts off the series' tradition. An evil gang is stealing fossils? Running a gambling operation? Taking over Pokémon Tower? Taking over a major company and holding the workers hostage? No problem, some kid will come along to stop them.

Apocalyptic Log: The records of Mewtwo's birth, found in the Pokémon Mansion. Mainly the last entry:

Diary: Sept. 1 MEWTWO is far too powerful. We have failed to curb its vicious tendencies…

Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: The trainers at the Fighting Dojo in Saffron City. They used to be the official gym for the city until Sabrina came in, Curb-Stomped them with her Psychic-types, and then took over.

Moves that take two turns to charge up, such as Solar Beam, Skull Bash, Sky Attack, etc. The charge-up turn leaves you vulnerable to attack in the meantime, and if the opponent uses something like Fly or Dig, your attack will miss anyway.

High damage but low accuracy moves, including the One-Hit KO moves. While awesome when they hit, they're simply too inaccurate to be reliable. They also generally have low PP, meaning you'll get to use them fewer times. This is why you'll see most players using weaker but more accurate/higher PP moves, such as Thunderbolt instead of Thunder or Flamethrower instead of Fire Blast.

Team Rocket kills Cubone's mother in Pokémon tower, leaving it an orphan.

Mewtwo is cloned from Mew and is subjected to "years of horrific gene-splicing."

Bait-and-Switch Boss: Throughout the game, any mention of the Elite Four sets them up as the final boss. When you get to their final member, Lance, his dialogue makes it sound as though he is your final challenge before becoming champion. However, after you defeat him, he reveals that your Rival beat you to the punch and claimed the title of champion. You must now beat him as well in order to claim the title.

Beat the Curse Out of Him: The channelers in Pokémon Tower are all possessed by Gastly and Haunter. Defeating these Pokémon brings the channelers back to their senses.

You can enter Diglett's cave as soon as you get to Vermilion City, however, the wild Diglett there can be as high as level 22 (higher than the Pokémon most of the local trainers are using at that point,) and there is even a chance to run into a level 31 Dugtrio whose speed and ability to hit hard can easily sweep your lower-leveled team. This is largely to discourage Sequence Breaking, but if you're strong enough, you can turn this into an advantage: capture a Diglett (or one of the Dugtrio) and use them to curb-stomp Lt. Surge, the local electric type gym leader.

While you can engage in Sequence Breaking regarding the middle four gym leaders, the levels of the trainers and the gym leaders strongly encourage tackling Surge, then Erika, then Koga or Sabrina, which, uniquely, have teams with near-identical levels.

The Super Nerd at the end of Mt. Moon is overprotective of his fossils and paranoid about Team Rocket stealing them, to the point where when you walk up to him, he'll mistake you for a plainclothes Rocket and challenge you.

Super Nerd Miguel: Hey, stop! I found these fossils! They're both mine!

Big Boo's Haunt: Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town. The place is crawling with ghosts which your own Pokémon is too scared to fight and you cannot catch until you obtain a special item that can unmask them. You can just run from most of the ghosts but you will need a special item to reveal the ghost of a dead Marowak that haunts the top of the tower.

Big First Choice: Begins the series tradition of having you choose from one of three starting Pokémon. You have to make this choice before getting to know anything about battling or the Mons themselves (other than their type.) Your rival will immediately choose the Pokémon strong against whichever you chose, and there is no way to get the ones you did not choose unless you trade them in from another game.

Big Red Button: When prompted to push the buttons in the Team Rocket hideout, selecting "Yes" makes the game reply, "Who wouldn't?"

Blackout Basement: The insides of the Rock Tunnel are pitch black (though the Player Character is still visible), making navigation extremely difficult. Using the move Flash will light up the cave.

You aren't required to battle any of the legendary Pokémon in the game, but each provides a big challenge if you choose to do so. Attempting to catch one makes it even more difficult still due to their sheer power and incredibly low catch rate.

Professor Oak has battle data programmed in and can be battled with cheats. His Pokémon are even stronger than the champion, seemingly supporting Agatha's claim that he is a Retired Badass trainer.

Bonus Dungeon: Cerulean Cave, home of Mewtwo, which is blocked off until you become Champion. It also contains the strongest wild Pokémon in the game.

Boring but Practical: The bog-standard Normal/Flying type Pidgey and its evolutions. A Pidgey may very well be the first Pokémon you catch yourself, and if raised diligently, can be one of the most reliable Pokémon on your team throughout much of the game. Its final evolution, Pidgeot, only starts to become outclassed around the time of Victory Road, and by then you'll likely have captured one of the legendary birds to replace it with.

Boss Arena Idiocy: Almost every gym leader makes their home near an area where Pokémon strong against their preferred type make their home. If you're having trouble with a particular gym leader, simply catch one of those Mons, level it up a bit, and then use it to sweep the leader.

Boss Corridor: The second battle with Giovanni has a long corridor in front of it, and each stage of the final encounter with the Elite Four except for the battle with the Champion also has a corridor before the room the trainer is in.

There's a Rocket in Mt. Moon with a Raticate that knows Hyper Fang. While Raticate isn't that strong for a fully evolved Pokémon, it's a powerful foe due to Hyper Fang's 80 BP and the STAB bonus making it hit incredibly hard relative to everything you've fought up to that point. Yellow and the remakes replaced it with a Rattata and Zubat.

The first Juggler you are likely to fight in the Fuschia City Gym only has one Mon, but that Mon is a level 38 Hypno (which is a higher level than two of the Gym Leader's Mons.) It is also of the broken Psychic type, so your options to counter it are relatively few.

Enter Diglett's Cave at your own risk: usually you will encounter the relatively harmless Diglett with levels around 20. Rarely though, you will encounter a level 31 Dugtrio. This is six levels higher than the strongest Pokémon of the nearest gym leader (Lt. Surge.) Dugtrio is also very fast, and since the higher the opposing Pokémon's speed reduces your ability to escape, the Dugtrio is highly likely to send you back to the last Pokécenter.

Boss Rush: The tradition of ending a main Pokémon game is facing the Elite Four trainer group at the Pokémon League; once a trainer enters the room with the first trainer, you're locked in and have to face all the trainers plus the League Champion (who is The Rival in this game) in a row to beat the game.

Pikachu's the biggest one, as it replaced Clefairy as the mascot of the franchise and can be found on just about everything Pokémon related in one form or another.

Meowth to only a slightly lesser extent as a result of becoming one of the lead villains in the anime. Expectedly, the anime's version made a cameo with Jesse and James in Yellow.

Jigglypuff was popular enough in Japan to be a semi-recurring character in the anime and is in every entry of the Super Smash Bros. games as a playable fighter.

The original Olympus Mons, Mewtwo, got its own movie about it, is playable in two of the Smash Bros. games, and got 2 Mega Evolutions in X and Y like Charizard.

Broken Bridge: In addition to the NPC Roadblock examples mentioned below, there are the two Snorlax blocking your way south to Fuchsia City after falling asleep in the middle of the road.

But Thou Must!: When Bill asks for your help in returning to human form, you can refuse. However, even if you do, he'll just beg you to do it for a little bit before proceeding with the dialogue that would've been shown immediately had you agreed to do it at first.

Can't Drop the Hero: You are free to deposit your starter Pokémon in the PC (and even release it outright) as soon as you've caught at least one other Pokémon, but players rarely do since your fully evolved starter becomes one of the strongest of its type available in the game and is quite useful throughout.

If you choose Charmander as your starter, you're going to have a tougher time with the first two gym leaders due their typing (Rock and Water, respectively.) With some effort and by catching a few other Mons to balance your team, you can reduce the difficulty significantly. Later in the game, the Charmander line becomes more useful.

Those who choose Bulbasaur will experience more difficulty in the late game. Two of the final gym leaders (Sabrina and Blaine) will be strong against the dual Grass/Poison type Bulbasaur line. Additionally, 3/4 of the Elite Four all feature Mons strong against or resistant to it, and your Rival's final team will have 4/6 Mons strong/resistant to it as well.

A simple Bicycle costs 1,000,000 Pokédollars, one more than you can even carry. Luckily, you get a voucher to acquire a bike for free.

Beverages can only be purchased at one place: on the roof of the Celadon Dept. Store.

Simple fishing rods aren't available for purchase anywhere. You can only get them as gifts from specific NPCs.

Com Mons: Just about anything you can catch up through Mt. Moon qualifies. In particular are the Pidgey, Rattata, and Spearow you can catch around Viridian City as well as the Bug-types in Viridian Forest.

There are trainers with evolved Pokémon at lower levels than they actually evolve at. For instance, your Rival will have a Pidgeotto at level 17 when you battle him in Cerulean City. Pidgey evolves into Pidgeotto at level 18...

NPC Pokémon will never run out of PP for a move.

Several trainers have Pokémon who know moves they cannot learn, such as Lance's Dragonite knowing Barrier.

If the player switches out a Pokémon, the AI will select whatever attack is most effective against what switches in on the same turn.

Captain Obvious: The Team Rocket member in the hideout who says, "The elevator won't work? Well, duh, it needs a key. Who has the lift key?" He asks as if he doesn't know, then after you beat him he says, "Oh no, I dropped the lift key!"

Chekhov's Gag: One 20 years in the making, no less. When Bill fuses with a Pokémon, it's just a humorous reference to The Fly (1986), and he tells you to run the "Cell Separation System" to de-fuse him. Then in Pokémon Sun and Moon, Bill and the Cell Seperation System are revealed as the only things that might save Lusamine, as she fuses an Ultra Beast and ends up getting a lot of toxins from it in her body.

Each of the towns is named after a color, except for Pallet Town which instead named after the item where different colors of paints are stored while painting.

Combat Exclusive Healing: The healing moves Recover and Rest can only be used in battle. Softboiled can be used in battle or out, but has different effects. In battle, it will heal the user. Out of battle, it instead transfers some of the user's HP to a chosen Mon.

Concealing Canvas: The switch to open the secret door to the Team Rockout hideout in the Celadon Game Corner is hidden behind a poster.

Console Cameo: There is a SNES in your bedroom where you first start the game. All future games continue this trend with featuring a console from its generation.

Conspicuously Light Patch: Koga's Gym has "invisible walls" that you have to find your way around to get to the Gym Leader. The tiles with "invisible walls" on them have four white dots, allowing you to find the right path fairly easily.

Continuing Is Painful: Losing a battle means losing half the money you are currently carrying. This could be painful to the point of crippling since are few reliable ways to make the money back.

Convenient Weakness Placement: In several locations, you can find Pokémon which are strong against the local gym leader. For example, Diglett's Cave outside of Vermillion City is full of Ground-type Diglett, who are immune to Lt. Surge's Electric-type attacks. Just outside of Celadon City, there is a patch of grass where you can catch either Growlithe or Vulpix (depending on your version,) both Fire-types to counter Erika's Grass-types. In order to get to Cinnabar Island, home of the Fire-type gym leader Blaine, you'll need to pass a water route (and optionally through the Seafoam Islands), which are full of Water-type Pokémon to counter him.

Cool Old Lady: Agatha of the Elite Four. She uses the cool (albeit broken) Ghost-type and was friends with Prof. Oak in their youth.

Crippling Overspecialization: While Psychic-types rule the day thanks to incredibly broken balance, there is one Pokémon who can give them a good fight: the humble Parasect. While the Psychic-type weakness to Ghost is bugged into an immunity, Psychic-types are still weak to Bug-type attacks. Unfortunately, there are no Bug-type moves which deal worthwhile enough damage to make a difference. Enter Parasect, who can learn the 100% accurate Sleep-inducing move Spore. Simply put the opposing Psychic-type to sleep and use the STAB receiving Leech Life to drain their health while restoring health to Parasect. Unfortunately, Parasect learns very few other worthwhile moves and comes with a crippling 4x weakness to Fire and Flying-types, leaving it only useful as a Psychic counter.

Critical Hit Class: Any Mon with a high crit move will crit all the time when it's used, assuming their species' base Speed stat is high enough. For regular moves, faster species have a crit rate of at least 20%, more than 3 times the universal rate later games had.

Butterfree and Beedrill. Their pre-evolutions can be caught early (before the first Gym) and they evolve at level 10. They pack quite a punch that early and Butterfree's various "powder" attacks make catching other Pokémon much easier. Their usefulness tends to peter out around the fourth gym once you've caught and evolved a few other Pokémon.

Picking Bulbasaur as your starter. It's super-effective against the first two gyms, resists the third, and makes Mt. Moon and the Rock Tunnel far more manageable provided you have a good way to deal with Zubat. It also evolves into Venusaur earlier than the other starters, giving you a powerful Pokémon earlier. After that, however, it struggles with the other gyms until Giovanni, especially Sabrina and Blaine, and Bruno is the only Elite Four member where it has the advantage (plus, picking Bulbasaur causes your rival's final team to have four out of six of his Pokémon be strong against it).

After beating Misty and doing a battle with a Rocket Grunt, you get the TM for the move Dig. It has a Base Power of 100 (essentially an endgame attack), can be taught to a lot of Pokémon, and hits most Pokémon in the game for neutral or super effective damage.

Depending on your version, you can can catch an Ekans (Red) or Sandshrew (Blue) shortly after exiting Mt. Moon. They evolve at the relatively early level 22, and are helpful against the next several gym leaders after Misty. They lack the high-end power to stick around on your team late in the game, but will make the middle parts somewhat easier.

Cut-and-Paste Environments: Virtually all environments fall into this. House interiors are pretty much all the same with some of the furniture rearranged, Pokémon Centers and Marts are identical save for the random NPCs inside, etc.

Dark Reprise: The Team Rocket Hideout theme is a more intense version of that of Viridian Forest.

Death Mountain: Subverted. Mt. Moon is a mountain, but all you explore is the cave within.

Demonic Possession: All the Channelers in Pokémon Tower are possessed by Ghost Pokémon (until you defeat them). You'll find Channelers in the Saffron City Gym as well, but they are not possessed and act like normal enemy trainers.

Due to the trading mechanic, many first time players attempt to break the game by trading in a high level Pokémon to breeze through the game. To prevent this, the developers made it so a high-level traded Pokemon will disobey you if you don't have enough badges (you need all eight badges to subvert this; the final badge, which you can only get after obtaining the other seven and just a little bit before the home stretch, makes it where all Pokémon will obey you no matter what the situation).

Because of the possibility of Sequence Breaking, both Koga and Sabrina have similarly leveled Pokemon.

Difficulty Spike: The reason for the Forced Level-Grinding between the eighth gym leader (Giovanni), whose strongest Pokémon is a level 50 Rhydon (with four others at level 45 or less,) and the first Elite Four member, Lorelei, who has a team of five all at level 53 or above. With proper typing, you can easily defeat Giovanni with a team in the low-mid 40s, meaning you'll want to grind each of your Mons about 8-10 levels before even attempting the Elite Four (who only get stronger after Lorelei and must all be faced one after the other.)

Dirty Old Man: One is outside of the Celadon City Gym, which is populated entirely by female trainers.

Old Man: "Heheh....This GYM is great! It's full of women!"

Disappeared Dad: You never meet your father in the game, and there is only one offhand comment made suggesting that he exists at all. The same is also true for your Rival, who appears to live with his sister.

On Route 2, you may notice an inaccessible area on the other side of the line of trees. This area is first accessible only as an extension of the Diglett Cave dungeon until you obtain the Cut HM and get the corresponding badge.

Just south of Pallet Town, there is a body of water. If you come back here once you're able to use Surf, you'll find a small patch of grass which is the only place in the game to find wild Tangela.

Disc One Final Boss: Lance, the final Elite Four member who specializes in Dragon-types. He even says that you're the champion, before saying that your rival, the real final boss, has become the champion before you.

Before passing through Viridian City, head over to Route 22. You won't be able to pass through the Pokémon League Gate yet, but you can catch a Nidoran in the patch of grass outside. Get it to level 16 and pick up a Moon Stone in Mt. Moon. Use it, and you'll have yourself a Nidoking or Nidoqueen before taking on the 2nd gym. Because of the early forced evolution, they won't learn many good moves naturally but can be taught a wide variety via TMs, such as Bubblebeam, Thunderbolt, and the STAB-receiving Earthquake.

Early in the game, there's the Magikarp Salesman. 500 Pokédollars for a Magikarp might be a waste, but evolves into the powerful Gyarados at Level 20 with some babying. Teach it Bubblebeam (which you get from Misty) to give it a strong STAB attack to abuse its high Special stat with and watch it plow through opponents.

Dub-Induced Plot Hole: There's an NPC on Cinnabar Island who offers to trade you his Electrode for a Raichu; if you speak to him afterwards he claims "the Raichu you traded me went and evolved!", which of course, isn't possible. (Though it didn't stop players from speculating about the possibility...) Turns out it was just a translation error – in the Japanese Blue Version, which provides the script and engine for the international releases rather than having them directly based on the original Red and Green, the NPC traded you a Graveler for a Kadabra, both Pokémon that evolve by trading, and his line afterwards was meant to be a hint on how to obtain their final forms. For the English release, the localizers changed the Pokémon being offered to what they were in the Japanese Red and Green but simply forgot to alter the rest of the dialogue to match.

Dude, Where's My Reward?: In the Celadon Mansion (the building where you get Eevee,) there is an NPC who offers you a "rare item" if you show him a completed Pokédex. After completing this gargantuan task, you show him your Pokédex and receive an Ether... An item which, if you've been thorough in searching and diligent using the Item-Finder, you probably have at least a dozen of.

Professor Oak has his own team that was originally meant to be the True Final Boss, but it was not fully programmed in. You can battle him by triggering a glitch or using a cheat device.

There's another type in the data called the Bird-type, presumably a earlier version of Flying. The glitch Pokémon Missingno. and 'M have this typing, but it doesn't have any weaknesses or resistances.

An accidental example: Dragon-type moves deal super-effective damage against Dragon-type mons, however, this behavior never actually occurs in Red and Blue, because the only damage-dealing Dragon-type move that existed at this point was Dragon Rage, a Fixed Damage Attack.

By using a Pokédoll on Marowak's ghost in Pokémon tower, you can skip the Team Rocket Game Corner hideout in Celadon City. (Though without the Silph Scope, you won't be able to catch any Ghost-type Pokémon of your own.)

By returning to Pallet Town and surfing south to Cinnabar Island, you can skip the Seafoam Islands.

Dungeon Crawling: All of the "cave" levels, including Mt. Moon, Rock Tunnel, and the Seafoam Islands. Less traditional but still qualifying examples include Pokémon Town, the Silph Company, and Cinnabar Island's Pokémon Mansion.

Dynamic Loading: "Gates," also known as guardhouses or lookout stations, play this role. Thankfully, they usually have something interesting inside, such as an NPC to trade with or one of Prof. Oak's Aides to give you an item. Less interesting are the two Underground Paths which are just long corridors with a hidden item or two.

Early Bird Boss: Brock plays this role, but only if you started with Charmander. With the only other Pokémon available that early being Com Mons with mostly Normal-type attacks (which his high-Defense Rock-types resist to a high degree) and Crutch Character Bug-types (if you bother to level-grind them,) your options to counter him are relatively few. A careful trainer can take advantage of his Mons' lack of actual Rock-type moves and poor Special stat by using Charmander's Ember, though you must be careful not to damage Onix while it is using Bide.

Early Game Hell: The most difficult part of the game is the early part up until you beat Misty, the 2nd gym leader. In terms of Pokémon, you're limited to your starter, Crutch Character bug Pokémon (if you bother to Level Grind them), and Com Mons such as the early game bird Pokémon and Rattata. There are also only a limited number of trainer battles, meaning you'll be low on money and will have to grind mostly against weak wild Pokémon. Viridian Forest isn't too difficult if you start with Charmander or teach a Pidgey/Spearow Gust/Peck, but you run the constant risk of being poisoned by Weedle's Poison Sting. Brock will be a breeze if you start with Squirtle or Bulbasaur, but will be more challenging to a Charmander trainer (though a few Embers each can floor both of Brock's Pokémon with little trouble as long as you don't damage Onix while the latter is using Bide). Then you get to Mt. Moon, a labyrinthine multi-level cave full of trainers, Geodude (who will resist the Normal-type moves most of your low-level Mons will be using at this point,) and Zubat (which are fast enough that you might not be able to flee and can inflict Confusion so you'll hurt yourself half the time trying to damage them). Eventually, you get through Mt. Moon... only to encounter your Rival in Cerulean City, followed by several trainers on a bridge that must all be defeated to move forward to Bill's House, which you need to visit to leave the city and continue with the game. Finally, you battle Misty, whose Starmie is extremely powerful for the part of the game you fight it in due to its high stats. Survive all of that and the game then opens up, becoming much friendlier and giving you more options in terms of Pokémon to catch, trainers to battle, and places to explore.

There's only one Special stat, covering the job that both Special Attack and Special Defense have in later games.

The Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors has a number of oddities. Due to a bug, Psychic-types are immune to Ghost attacksnote though since the only damaging ghost-type attack at the time (Lick) was extremely weak, the immunity bug was just insult to injury which are played up by NPCs and the anime as their primary weakness. Intentionally, Ice does neutral damage to Fire-types instead of being resisted, and Bug and Poison are both super effective against each other. Dragon-types are already programmed to be super-effective against themselves, but they might as well not be since the only damage-dealing Dragon-type move is a Fixed Damage Attack. The Psychic Type is overpowered because the Dark Type did not yet exist. The Steel Type also did not yet exist.

Struggle is treated as a Normal-type move, so Ghosts are immune to it.

Moves with a 100% hit/crit chance will still fail 1/256 (0.4%) of the time.

Critical Hit ratios are calculated based on a Mon's Speed stat instead of having a universal rate, and will ignore stat boosts the user may have. Also, moves that have a higher crit chance will always do so if the user has a certain Speed (about as high as Flareon's or higher).

Multi-hit moves like Pin Missile use one check for crits instead of doing each hit separately. This means if the first one crits, every hit will.

Paralysis and Burn cut speed and attack respectively, as intended and carried on into all future games, but the stat change is stacked into the normal stat modifier instead of being its own thing. Because of this, Rest does not remove the stat drop when it cures the status.

Sleep lasts several turns longer, you cannot attack the turn you wake up, and it's possible to wake up on the turn it is inflicted.

Due to how infliction for status effects work, Normal-types and Ghost-types cannot be paralyzed by Body Slam and Lick, respectively.

Many moves have different power, accuracy and, in some cases, type from later games.

Reflect and Light Screen will remain active as long as the user is on the field and end immediately when they faint or switch out, instead of petering out after a set number of turns like in later titles. They also double the user's appropriate defensive stat instead of lowering the attacker's offensive stat during the damage calculation.

Mimic and Disable will affect one of the opponent's moves at random, instead of the last one they used, like in all later generations. Because of this, it can work on the very first turn (in later generations it will fail if used before the opponent has had a chance to attack).

One-Hit Kill attacks will fail if the user is slower than the target. The user also does not get an accuracy bonus based off the difference between the user's and target's Level like in later games.

Counter has a lot of quirks. It only works from being hit by a Normal or Fighting attack (including opposing Counters, Bide, and Seismic Toss unlike later games), can hit Ghosts, works with damage dealt to the user's Substitute and can be used multiple times off of one hit.

Bide ignores accuracy and evasion, can hit foes during in invulnerable period of Dig or Fly, hits Ghost-types, will last either 2 or 3 turns instead of a set 3, and has a couple other complicated quirks involving how damage is stored.

Trapping moves like Wrap and Clamp prevent the target from taking any action until they end, but oddly do not prevent switching out. The user also cannot switch moves during the duration similar to Thrash.

Unlike future games, when a Pokémon is stored in the PC, they are not automatically healed.

There's an odd open-endedness for a good part of the game, while later titles would make you take on the Gyms and events in a very set order. While you still need to foil Team Rocket plots in order note You run into them in Mt. Moon first, then a few Grunts around Cerulean City, then their hideout in Celadon, which you need to beat in order to obtain the Silph Scope, which you need to beat them at Pokemon Tower, which THEN grants you access to their takeover of Silph Co., and that has to be dealt with to be able to enter the Saffron City Gym, which needs to be dealt with so you can settle the team for good in Viridian once you have all seven of the other badges, and this encounter has to be completed to enter the Pokemon League and finish the game., you may do so at your own pace and once you beat Misty, you are free to challenge the next four Gyms (Lt. Surge, Erika, Koga, Sabrina) in whatever order you deem fit.

The TM list is weird, ranging from moves as basic as Rage, Bide and Water Gun to the likes of Bubblebeam, Swords Dance and Fissure.

It's purely cosmetic in function, but when trying to catch Legendaries, expect to see "You missed the POKéMON!" instead of the standard "Oh, the POKéMON broke free!".note Unlike later games, using POKé Balls has four different failure messages instead of three. The first and worst failure message has the 'mon dodge the ball entirely.

Your team is not automatically healed when entering a Player Versus Player battle, nor are they healed after beating the Elite Four.

Normal NPC trainers do not have their names given, you're just told what their trainer class is. All other games give the trainers names.

These games remain the only installment in the series in which it is possible to migrate Pokémon back from their sequels, thanks to Gold, Silver, and Crystal versions all being released for the same system. Because of the changes in platforms and system overhauls in between generations, any ability to transfer Pokémon forward to the next generation is a one-way trip.

The battle theme of this game and its remake are the only one to be constantly frantic instead of being at least partly joyous. Even the later incarnations of the song, whether the anime incarnation, the Super Smash Bros. incarnation or even later games in the series, all rearrange the song in such a way so that it has parts that give out vibes of it being joyous.

References to Real Life locations, which seem weird due to the Earth Drift that the series underwent in later installments.

A few other NPCs as well as some Pokedex entries also make reference to real life places. Raichu's 'dex entry mentions an Indian elephant, Mew is said to have been found in South America, and a Sliph Co. employee complains that he's being reassigned to the Tiski branch, calling it "Russian no-man's land".

These games internally handle whether or not a Pokémon successfully gets captured significantly different than later games in the series, the most obvious being that it's possible for the player to miss the Pokémon (changed to the Pokéball not shaking at all from Pokémon Gold and Silver onwards).

These are the only games to have only one item pouch, and to not feature the ability to assign key items to buttons.

Numerous trainers are depicted as carrying whips (Cooltrainers, Tamers, Rocket Grunts, Cue Balls, Sabrina); both the remakes and all future games removed them (except for the Tamers, who still have whips in the remakes).

The Ghost-types in the Pokémon Tower can only be identified and properly fought once the Silph Scope is obtained. Later games don't require any sort of item to engage Ghosts.

Fixed Damage Attacks can hit mons that would normally be immune to their type. While ignoring Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors was mostly kept, it's only in this generation that they bypass full immunities. This is also the only generation that introduced any of these attacks at all; they're kept in due to the Grandfather Clause (no move has ever been fully removed from Pokémon), but you almost get the feeling they're Old Shame.

The covers don't show the game's resident Legendary, but one of the possible starter's final evolution.

When the Bike is in use the music is always playing on the overworld.

Unlike future installments, the league Champion is not established as the leader of the Elite Four. It's also the only generation where the league Champion isThe Rival.

Earth Drift: There are several references to real-world countries littered throughout the game. Lt. Surge's gym title was (and still is) "The Lightning American", Mew is stated to have been previously discovered in the jungles of Guyana, and one Silph Co. scientist explains that he was sent to the company's Tiski branch, "in Russian no-man's-land," among others. While these references are kept in the remakes, references to real-world places have been entirely dropped by the following generations.

Easter Egg: If you Sequence Break so that the S.S. Anne doesn't leave, and you come back with Surf, you'll find a truck to the right of the ship. While it doesn't do anything in the original games, there's a Lava Cookie hidden near it in the remakes.

Empty Room Psych: There's a singular truck in the game by the S.S. Anne, that's only reachable if you learn Surf before having the SS go away. Since decoration in the game was rare, there were loads of rumors about it holding a Mew. It ultimately held nothing.

Endangered Species: Lapras and Farfetch'd are specifically mentioned to be these. In a nice case of Gameplay and Story Integration, only one of each is available in the game to reflect their rarity. (Lapras as a gift, and Farfetch'd in trade.)

End Game Plus: After becoming Champion, the credits will roll and you'll be returned to your home in Pallet Town. Cerulean Cave will now be open, and you're free to challenge the Elite Four again or battle against your friends. Stops short of being a Playable Epilogue (like the later games in the series have) because no one will recognize your achievement as Champion. Other than the NPC Roadblock in front of Cerulean Cave being gone, the game world is exactly the same.

Escape Rope: The Trope Namer. Escape Ropes are items that will return you to the last Pokémon Center you visited. The moves Dig and Teleport can be used outside of battle to similar effect, with the former working in dungeons and sending you to the entrance and the latter sending you to the last Pokémon Center you used when used in outdoor areas. The move Fly expands on Teleport's function, allowing you to fly to any town (and, in some games, any rural Pokémon Center, such as the one outside Mt. Moon in FireRed and LeafGreen) you've set foot in, essentially making it a more flexible upgrade to Teleport (with the catch that not all Pokémon that can learn Teleport can learn Fly).

Eternal Engine: The Kanto Power Plant located on Route 10. It is big, abandoned, and crawling with Electric-type Pokémon and the legendary bird Zapdos.

Everyone Owns A Mac: The PC's sprite bears a close resemblance to the original Apple Macintosh.

Fake Balance: Psychic effectively has no weaknesses, as Ghost is bugged to not work against them at all while the only Bug moves are incredibly weak. Strong neutral attacks do more damage than a super effective Bug attack, unless it's a Pin Missile that hit 4-5 times. One notable exception is the humble Parasect. His Leech Life does triple damage to Psychic types because of its STAB, which makes it equal in power to the rather strong normal-type Bite, except that it also heals you for half the damage done. This, in addition to Parasect's 100% accurate Spore, will let you breeze through Sabrina's gym while your fungal friend puts her Pokémon to sleep and then sucks their big brains out. He even stands a chance against your rival's Alakazam, and will practically one-hit his Exeggutor because of the latter's secondary Grass type. Unfortunately, other than these circumstances, Parasect's 4x weakness to Fire and Flying-types causes it to enter Crippling Overspecialization territory.

Fake Ultimate Mook: There is a reason this trope was formerly named "Level Five Onix." Despite being a massive, menacing snake made out of boulders, Onix has awful stats across the board except for defense (which is negated by its low HP) and has a 4x weakness to Grass and Water. Brock's Onix in particular could be taken out easily by those who started with Bulbasaur or Squirtle, and even a Charmander trainer could take it out while being cautious not to attack while Onix was using Bide.

Fake Weakness: Psychic-types are stated to be weak against Ghost-type moves, but due to a bug, they are immune instead.

Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Kanto is equivalent to the Kanto region of Japan, and eastern Chubu as well, with Johto from Generation II being based on the western part of Chubu in addition to Kansai. Kanto is the only region in the Pokémon games to share its name with the Japanese region it is based on.

First Town: The game starts in the quaint Pallet Town, the place where the player and their rival grew up. There isn't much to it outside of Professor Oak's Lab, the only important landmark.

Buying too many Ultra Balls or Great Balls at once causes a bug that can lock you inside of the Poké Mart unless you restart or remove your Gym Badges. If done a certain way and saving, this will even corrupt the save file.

Using Psywave or Counter during a Link Battle may cause the games to no longer sync up properly due to wonky RNG rolls. The battle will continue, but the actions will not match up between the games and both players will eventually be forced to restart their systems.

Get on the Boat: Subverted with the SS Anne. You'll need to board the boat in order to get HM01, Cut, to clear trees that impede further progress, but the boat doesn't go anywhere until you get off.

Give Me Your Inventory Item: In order to get past the Gate Guards to enter Saffron City, you'll need to give them a beverage purchased on the roof of the Celadon Department Store.

Global Currency Exception: The Game Corner operates using coins, which can only be won from the slot machines or purchased directly for ridiculous sums (50 coins for 1000 Pokédollars.) Expect to be playing a lot of slots if you want that Porygon, which costs 9999 coins and is only available through the Game Corner.

Gold Tooth: The Safari Zone Warden has a full set of gold dentures, which he lost in the Safari Zone. He'll reward you for returning them.

Gratuitous English: On occasion in the Japanese version. For example, if you tell the old man in Viridian City you're in a hurry:

Gratuitous Ninja: The Fuchsia City Gym is full of them, and led by the ninja-master Koga who specializes in Poison-types.

Great Offscreen War: Lt. Surge mentions having fought in one, where his life was saved by his Pokémon. Notably, this is the only mention of such a war in the series to date (except for the remakes where the line was kept exactly.) Fan theories have run wild, using the war to explain some of the odd quirks in the series, such as there being so few adult males. (Most males in the series tend to be either children, or older men like Prof. Oak, Blaine, and Mr. Fuji.)

If you didn't add any new caught data to the Pokédex nor bought any Poké Balls by the time you beat Blue on Route 22, you can go to Prof. Oak for free Poké Balls. Outside of Yellow, this will probably need grinding.

Nowhere in the game itself does it tell you what certain moves actually do. This is especially frustrating when a Pokémon is trying to learn a new move. All you get to know is the name of the move, the type of the move, and the move's PP. Is it stronger or weaker than another move your Pokémon already knows? Can it inflict any status effects? Who knows?

The location of the Lift Key in the Game Corner hideout. In order to get it in Red and Blue, you have to beat a specific Rocket and then talk to him after the battle, prompting him to drop the Lift Key. He's the only trainer in the game who drops an item in this fashion, and the only trainer that requires you to talk with them after being defeated. In Yellow, the Rocket drops the Lift Key automatically, with no need to talk to him again.

Heroic Mime: Played with. You never hear your trainer speak (in the overworld, that is; your trainer is implied to be plenty chatty in battles, since you'd at least be calling out the name of the Pokémon you deploy and they'd need to get orders on what move to use somehow), but attempting to talk to the "Copycat" girl in Saffron City produces dialog, subtitled as your own, of a one-sided conversation; it's the Copycat's dialog, mimicking the things the trainer implicitly said to her.

Hidden Agenda Villain: Team Rocket is clearly up to something, but it's never fully explained in-game. However, if you put together the pieces, along with a few details shown in the Anime to fill in the gaps, you can come up with a pretty plausible theory: They were trying to gain control of Mewtwo after it broke out of the Cinnabar Mansion. No living Pokemon is stronger than Mewtwo, but something revived from a fossil might work. Ghosts are strong against Psychic (at least, in-universe, game glitches notwithstanding,) so a horde of Ghost-type Pokemon from the Pokemon Tower might also work (hence the need for the Silph Scope). They also hold hostage Mr. Fuji, since he helped create Mewtwo. Finally, the Master Ball can capture any Pokemon without fail... but there's only one in the entire region, so Giovanni had to take it by force. It's justified in that the average Rocket Grunt probably doesn't know that Mewtwo even exists, and Giovanni isn't about to spill the beans to an eleven-year-old who's seemingly intent on wrecking his organization.

Hub City: Saffron City and Celadon City. Saffron is actually connected to four other cities (as long as the gate guards aren't thirsty) and is the largest city in the game. Celadon is the second largest, and includes the largest store and the Game Corner. (With Kanto being based on the real-life Kantō region of Japan, these two cities both represent Tokyo: Celadon for the culture, Saffron for the commerce.

Ineffectual Loner: Your Rival toward his Pokémon. It isn't until after you've defeated him as Champion that he finally starts to understand the advantage conferred by The Power of Friendship with his Pokémon.

The Dragon-type was probably intended to be this, being equally effective against all other elemental types, despite that there was only one evolutionary family of Dragon-types, and the only actual Dragon-type attack, "Dragon Rage", was a Fixed Damage Attack exempt from Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors altogether.

The Psychic-type has no meaningful weaknesses due to bad balancing, nothing resists it except itself, and it had a type advantage against Poison, the most common type in the game.

Normal only has one weakness (Fighting, which is easily covered by having a Psychic-type teammate) and it does regular damage to everything except Ghost and Rock, both of which can be hit with the widely distributed Earthquake (every Ghost at this point was part Poison).

Infinity+1 Sword: Mewtwo is massively powerful on his own, made even more powerful by being a horribly broken Psychic-type. Only available after becoming Pokémon League champion and comes at the massive level 70, when 50-60 is about where you'll be when the credits roll.

Your fully evolved starter is one of the strongest of its type in the game and will usually be your most reliable Mon throughout.

Alakazam is statistically the second strongest Pokémon in these games and a Psychic-type. Unlike most examples, it can be obtained relatively early as long as you can trade Kadabra as soon as it evolves from Abra at level 16.

The three Legendary birds, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. They are only available very late into the game and are among the most powerful Mons.

Dragonite has the second-highest base stat total, the highest Attack at this point of the franchise, and can learn a variety of moves. However, it can only be obtained by catching the rare (and weak) Dratini in the Safari Zone and babying it until it hits level 55.

Interface Spoiler: The Viridian Gym Leader's identity is played up as a mystery, with even the guy who gives you advice in every Gym not knowing who they are... except checking the statues at the front point-blank gives away their name.

Inventory Management Puzzle: In your bag, you are limited to 20 individual slots for unique items. For instance, whether you were carrying one Potion or 99 Potions, it only takes up one inventory "slot". Because of this, it is wise to carry as few unique items as you can get away with. You can store an extra 50 unique items in the PC to help alleviate this somewhat, but the PC can only be accessed in a Pokémon Center, meaning those items won't be available to you in the game world.

Invisible Wall: The Fuchsia City Gym has them, forcing you to go around and fight all of the trainers instead of going to Koga directly.

Istanbul Not Constantinople: Averted for the only time in the series to date. The Kanto region here shares it's name with the real life Kantō region of Japan, on which the game map is based.

It's All Upstairs from Here: Quite a few buildings with plenty of stairs appear: Pokémon Tower, Celadon Mansion (especially if one goes in the back to get an Eevee,) the Celadon Department Store (though this also has an elevator,) and the Silph Co. Building (which also has an elevator as well as warp tiles between floors.)

Leaked Experience: The "Exp. All" item. If you have it in your inventory, it distributes a fraction of the experience gained from a battle between all of the Pokémon in your party.

Leap of Faith: Cinnabar Island's Pokémon Mansion has a couple of spots where you will need to jump. Only one of the spots allows you to advance, so it becomes a bit of Trial-and-Error Gameplay.

Level Grinding: Expect to be doing quite a bit of it throughout the game. The most flagrant case comes after beating the 8th gym but before taking on the Elite Four, where you'll need to gain about 10-15 levels with each of your Pokémon in order to stand a chance.

Limited Sound Effects: Due to the software limitations of the day, two sets of two Pokémon had identical cries - Charizard and Ryhorn as well as Poliwag and Ditto. Even more Pokémon had cries that were just sped-up or slowed-down version of the each other - Caterpie and Poliwag/Ditto, Fearow and Cloyster, Jynx and Exeggutor, etc. This was changed for all future games, so now no two Pokémon have the same cry.

A Lizard Named "Liz": In Vermilion City, you can trade for a Farfetch'd, which is a Pokémon based on a duck. The nickname its original trainer gave it? Dux.

Lost Woods: Viridian Forest which also functions as the Noob Cave since the very first trainers appear here and the forest itself is a maze.

Magic Is Rare; Health Is Cheap: Potions of various strengths which can be used to heal HP can be purchased from PokeMarts and found all over the game world. Ethers and Elixirs, which restore PP, cannot be purchased and are extremely rare to find. It's best to save them all for the Elite Four, where you'll have to fight several difficult battles in a row without being able to restore the PP of moves at a Pokémon Center in between.

Trope Namer. Magikarp can be purchased in Mt. Moon's Pokémon Center very early in the game, and it's completely pathetic even compared to the local Com Mons. Get it to level 20 and it'll evolve into the very powerful Gyarados, which can proceed to steamroll everything in its path.

When you catch an Abra, it only knows one move: Teleport. Teleport allows it to flee battle, making it very hard to catch without putting it to sleep first. It will effectively be useless in battle for you, but grind it to level 16, and it evolves into the much more useful Kadabra. You can then immediately trade Kadabra to a friend and then trade it back, giving you the very powerful Alakazam.

The rare Dratini, which could only be captured by fishing in the Safari Zone or purchased at the Game Corner, is also extremely weak. If babied until level 30, it would evolve into the only-slightly-better Dragonair. Get it to 55, however, and it would evolve into the mighty Dragonite. Dragonite has the second highest base state total in the game, the single highest Attack stat with a large enough move pool to take full advantage, and only one weakness to the (rare) Ice type.

Marathon Boss: The various Legendary Pokémon, particularly if you're trying to catch them. Due to their incredibly low catch rates, they can shrug off dozens of catch attempts even if they are reduced to extremely low HP and inflicted with a status effect. Meanwhile, they'll be blowing away your Pokémon with high powered attacks. Should you knock them out and need to reload a save to try again, you'll have to start all over again, making this a very time consuming process.

Marathon Level: Routes 12, 13, 14, and 15 combine to make for a long route connecting Lavender Town to Fuschia City. It's full of trainers with nowhere close by to heal along the way. Thankfully, it's optional, but you'll need to get through at least part of it if you want the Super Rod.

Master of All: Mew has a solid 100 in base stats across the board, and can learn any TM or HM.

Abra. While only a slightly uncommon encounter, it has the annoying habit of using its only move (Teleport) to flee from battle, making it incredibly difficult to catch. If you are able to catch one, you can evolve it into the much more powerful Kadabra (and, if you can trade it, Alakazam), giving you an extremely powerful Pokémon.

Chansey is extremely rare, appearing at a 4% encounter rate at most in the Safari Zone (and only in a certain area; elsewhere the rate is 1%), and at a 5% encounter rate in Cerulean Cave. They're hard to catch and in the former, they will almost always flee the first chance they get. Beating one, however, will give out the most experience you can get from wild Pokémon, and catching it gives you perhaps the best Special-oriented Stone Wall in the game.

Minus World: "Glitch City", accessed by flying somewhere while the game thinks you're still in the Safari Zone, is a mess of tiles that can only be escaped from by Fly or Teleport. Depending on where the glitch is activated, the layout will look different.

The Missingno.: Trope Namer. The eponymous creature (and the closely related 'M) is created by the game trying to access data that doesn't exist, so it takes on a glitchy appearance which can vary depending on which methods are used to encounter it.

There is a one-of-a-kind truck in Vermillion City which can only be accessed if you never allow the SS Anne to leave as it is scripted to do. Once you reach it, you find nothing there.

There appears to be a pathway behind Bill's house that leads somewhere but is impossible to reach.

There are two patches of grass along Route 1 which cannot be reached.

Mook Chivalry: Team Rocket, despite being an outright evil organization, still obeys the rules of a Pokémon battle. Even if they have dozens of mooks present (such as in Silph Co.,) they'll never attack more than one at a time.

Musical Spoiler: The first dungeon you go through is the Viridian Forest, not too far from the First Town of Viridian City which had an absent Gym Leader. Later on, the forest's theme is remixed for Team Rocket's Hideout under the Celadon Game Corner and where you first encounter their leader, Giovanni. Eventually, Viridian City's gym leader returns after you get 7 badges and its revealed to be none other than Giovanni himself.

The Needless: On Routes 19, 20, and 21, you will encounter swimmers who do nothing but swim and float around. Given the fact that ocean water is very salty and a poor conductor of heat, it's a small wonder how they will never expire from hypothermia and dehydration.

Nerf: International releases reduced Blizzard's chance to inflict Freeze from 30% to 10%.

Noob Cave: Viridian Forest is the first area of the game that isn't just a straightforward Route, and it's where items lying on the ground and NPC trainers besides Blue first appear.

No Sell: Legendary Pokémon can flat out evade Pokéballs if they haven't been sufficiently weakened. This was dropped in all future games.

Not So Above It All: Even the plainclothes Rocket at the end of the Nugget Bridge partakes in the Double Entendre madness in the Japanese version, using such innuendo-laden phrases (roughly translated here) as "beat" and "give you".

NPC Roadblock: All over the place. There's the old man in Viridian City who won't let you pass until he's had his "coffee" (which he has only after you deliver Oak's Parcel), the guy in Pewter City who won't let you pass to Mt. Moon until you beat Brock, the gate guards who won't let you into Saffron City until you give them a drink, the cop in front of the burgled house in Cerulean City who only moves aside after you talk to Bill at Cerulean Cape, the guy who stands in front of Cerulean Cave until after you beat the Elite Four and the Champion, etc.

Obvious Beta: There are numerous glitches (game-breaking and otherwise), the type chart is unbalanced, and some moves flat-out don't work properly, such as Focus Energy lowering the chance of getting a critical hit instead of raising it.

Off Model: Several of the Pokémon sprites in Japan's Blue and the international releases. While the sprites in the original Japanese Red and Green were simply badly drawn, those from Blue and the international releases were genuinely off-model, getting some of the monsters' most recognizable characteristics plain wrong: for instance, Koffing's skull mark is shown above its face instead of below, Cloyster's shell is horizontal instead of vertical, Kingler has two claws of the same size instead of having one claw bigger than the other, the center egg of Exeggcute being larger than the others instead of them being all the same size and so on. All of the sprites were changed again for Yellow to make them more closely resemble the official artwork.

Old Save Bonus: Any player who beats the Master Cup in Pokémon Stadium or its sequel with a Pikachu in their party will have said Pikachu learn Surf (a move Pikachu otherwise cannot legitimately learn). Pokémon Yellow took this unlockable a few steps forward in that not only there's a special overworld sprite for when Pikachu uses the move outside of battle, a house south of Saffron City allows the player can play an Excite Bike clone called "Pikachu's Beach". This is unlocked by default in the Virtual Console re-release.

One of the Boys: Lass Sally uses Pokémon more typical of a Youngster (specifically, a Rattata and a Nidoran♂).

One Stat to Rule Them All: "Special" dictated both attack and defense power in regard to special-based elements (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Psychic, etc.). It was toned down a great deal in Generation II, wherein it was divided into separate Special Attack and Special Defense.

Open Ended Boss Battle: The first battle with your Rival can be lost with minimal consequences. Losing in any other battle after this forces you to return to the last Pokémon center and lose half your money.

Overly Long Gag: In order to obtain the Bike Voucher, you'll need to endure a long conversation with the Pokémon Fan Club President.

Path of Most Resistance: In nearly every gym, there is a path to get to the gym leader while only needing to fight a few of the gym's other trainers. Most players deliberately go out of their way to battle every trainer for the experience and money. In fact, most guides advise battling every trainer you come across to aid in leveling-up and earning money.

Peninsula of Power Leveling: In Pokémon Tower, there is a "purified" square which instantly heals all of your Pokémon. Best of all, it can be used an unlimited number of times, making a great spot for mid-game Level Grinding.

Pig In A Poke: An NPC in Vermilion City offers to trade you a one-of-a-kind Farfetch'd for an ultra common Spearow. Spearow can evolve into the much-better Fearow, while Farfetch'd remains a worthless battler. Ultimately Subverted though, as you can easily catch another Spearow but there is no other way to get a Farfetch'd if you're going for 100% completion. Also, Farfetch'd can learn the much-maligned "Cut" HM (which you conveniently get in the same town) as well as Fly, making it an HM-slave option.

Plot Tunnel: After exiting Mt. Moon, there's a ledge with no ladders or stairs going back up. Once you jump down, you're effectively locked out of that area until you're able to learn and use the HM Cut, which requires some non-trivial progress. (Defeat your Rival, cross Nugget Bridge, visit Bill, Beat Misty, beat your Rival again, then heal the captain on the SS Anne.) If you haven't been capturing a variety of Pokémon and/or are under-leveled, you may find yourself struggling with these parts while being unable to go back.

Played straight with the Team Rocket Grunts, who primarily use Poison-types (Zubat, Koffing, Ekans, Grimer, etc.) along with non-Poison-types who can use Poison-type moves (Sandshrew) as well as the Ratatta-line.

Subverted with Giovanni, the boss of Team Rocket. While he prefers Ground-types and is the Ground-type gym leader, his Nidoking and Nidoqueen are part Poison.

Averted with Koga, who is the actual Poison-type gym leader but isn't evil.

Played straight with the Biker-class trainers, who are implied to be motorcycle gang types, and use Poison-types along with Fighting-types.

Poor, Predictable Rock: Every gym leader and Elite Four member devotes him or herself to one particular type. Justified, since they are meant to test trainers by providing them a challenge.

Pop Quiz: If you don't want to fight the trainers in the Cinnibar Gym, you can also answer the questions provided by each statue.

Port Town: Vermilion City. A world famous ship named the S.S. Anne docks here when not cruising the world and the ship is quite a destination spot for trainers.

Privileged Rival: Your Rival is the grandson of the world-renowned Prof. Oak, while you are the son of an apparently single mother. While you do get first pick of the three starter Pokémon, this puts you at a disadvantage, as he will choose whichever one is strong against the one you chose.

Professor Guinea Pig: Bill accidentally merges himself with a Pokémon while working on his teleportation system.

Properly Paranoid: The Super Nerd at the end of Mt. Moon (called Miguel in later generations) who is very protective of his fossils will assume you're a plainclothes Rocket. A bit later on, you'll find a plainclothes Rocket at the end of the Nugget Bridge, so Miguel clearly wasn't about to take any chances.

Puni Plush: Just about every Pokemon sprite is done in this style, even when it really clashes with the design.

Railroading: Along with the plethora of NPC Roadblocks, this is done via the required use of HM moves (Cut, Flash, Strength, and Surf) as well as the need for key items (Pokéflute, Silph Scope) to advance past various obstacles.

Rainbow Motif: In effect for the Japanese versions when it comes to gym badges. The names were changed for the international releases (except for Erika's Rainbow Badge.)

Rare Candy: The Trope Namer. Rare Candies are rare items which, when given to a Pokémon, increase that Mon's level by one instantly.

Rat Stomp: The games early routes are infested with Com Mon Rattata. They're not particularly challenging in the least.

Required Party Member: You'll need Pokémon who know HM moves in order to advance through most areas. Out of the five HM moves, only Surf is actually worthwhile in battle towards the end of the game, meaning you'll need to handicap some of your good Mons to learn the others or handicap your overall party by keeping a "HM Slave" Pokémon on hand to use the moves and not much else.

Rule of Three: The three starter Pokémon. The three legendary birds. The three options for evolving Eevee. The three units/heads some Pokémon get upon evolution. The maximum of three stages of evolution a Pokémon can have.

Saved for the Sequel: About 40 other Pokémon were originally planned for these games (and even programmed in to a degree, leaving blank spaces which would become the various forms of Missingno) but would instead debut in Generation II.

Second Place Is for Losers: How Prof. Oak acts toward your Rival when you defeat him as champion. Nevermind that, despite his flaws, he was still skilled enough to defeat all of the gyms and the Elite Four, and would still be champion if you hadn't shown up.

Secret A.I. Moves: There are several trainers who have Mons with moves they cannot legitimately learn. The biggest offender is Lance's Dragonite knowing Barrier, a move which it has never been able to legitimately learn even in subsequent generations.

See-Thru Specs: The Silph Scope works in this fashion, allowing the wearer to see the true form of Ghost Pokémon.

Lt. Surge, Erika, Koga, Sabrina, and Blaine can be fought in nearly any order. The only constraint is that you have to beat Koga to get to Blaine, since Surf is required.

The Game Corner Rocket Hideout can be skipped entirely by using a Poké Doll on the Marowak ghost in the Pokémon Tower.

In general, trading Pokémon from other games that know HM moves like Cut and Surf can save a lot of time, as you don't have to go out and grab the necessary HMs anymore (Unless you want to teach HM moves to more Pokémon, but that can be done afterwards at your leisure).

Using the Color Case in Pokémon Stadium 2, you can transfer items between Generation I games freely (If you only have one game, starting over after saving the items in the Case works as well). Thanks to this, it's possible to bring a Fresh Water or other drink to the Saffron City guards right after helping Bill.

Ship Level: The S.S. Anne in Vermilion City. Your rival is fought there, and the player needs to visit it to obtain the Cut HM needed to access Vermilion's Gym.

Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: In an in-universe example, every Gym has an NPC standing near the entrance who offers general advice about the Gym's leader— except in Celadon City, where he's too busy playing slots at the Rocket Game Corner.

Skippable Boss: It is possible to skip several battles with your Rival. First, by not exploring Route 22 and later, by trading in a Pokémon who already knows Cut so you can skip the SS Anne.

Socialization Bonus: Like many monster collecting games, trading is necessary to catch 'em all and Pokémon took a step further by having four Pokémon (Machoke, Graveler, Kadabra, Haunter) only evolve when traded. There is no other reason for this to be implemented other than to encourage trading among players.

Standard RPG Items: Pretty much every one listed on the trope page has an equivalent here. Potions heal Hit Points, Revives heal Fainting, Antidotes heal Poison, Awakenings heal Sleep, etc. There are also items which cover multiple effects, such as Full Restores which heal all damage and status effects.

Starter Mon: Kicks off the series standard of offering you three options: a Grass-type (Bulbasaur), a Water-type (Squirtle), and Fire-type (Charmander).

Suicidal Overconfidence: A Bug Catcher on Route 9 says, "Go, my super bug Pokémon!" before he fights you. By this point, your Pokémon have been through at least two Gym Leaders, meaning Bug-types stand almost no chance against you, especially if you use a Fire or Flying-type.

"Don't touch the poster at the Game Corner! There's no secret switch behind it!"

A burglar in Cinnabar Mansion:

"A key? I don't know what you're talking about!"

Take That: When starting a new game within the English versions of the game, before entering the characters' names, the player's name is initialized to NINTEN and the rival's name to SONY.

Teaser Equipment: The bicycle. When you first arrive in Cerulean City, it is on display for one million Pokédollars (one Pokédollar more than your carrying capacity). After advancing the plot in the next town, you get a voucher to acquire one for free.

Among the Gym Leaders, Misty (the tomboyish mermaid) and Erika (the nature-loving princess). Their strategies and their types also make the distinction between their personalities clear: Misty wields a Staryu and a Starmie, the latter especially that can wipe the floor with your Pokémon rather easily if you're not prepared, and Erika uses comparatively easy Grass-type Pokémon that, if you have a Fire-type, a Grass-type that knows at least one non-Grass-type move, or a Flying-type, should be a breeze to defeat by comparison.

Picnickers and Lasses also share this dynamic; it even shows in their battle sprites.

The Master Ball, which you obtain after defeating Giovanni for the second time, will catch any Pokémon without fail, but you only get one. Guides advise players to save it for Mewtwo in the post-game, as it's the hardest Pokémon to catch.

Some rare healing items like Max Revives and PP restoring items like Ethers and Elixirs cannot be purchased from any store, only found in the overworld lying around.

Some TMs count due to the comparatively barren level-up movepool most Pokémon have in these games. For example, Rock Slide is one of two offensive Rock-type moves in Gen I, but no Pokémon learn it naturally and there's only one TM of it per game. However, since there aren't enough slots in the inventory and PC to hold every TM along with your other items, you'll be forced to use some of them at some point.

Unprovoked Pervert Payback: Lasses and some Picnickers in Kanto have a thing for overreacting to things you may or may not have done before battle.

Lass Robin: (after approaching the player from a few steps away) Eek! Did you touch me?

Unwinnable by Mistake: Surf is required to get the 7th badge, which is required to beat the game. However, the only location to get the HM containing Surf is the Safari Zone, which costs money to enter. If you run out of money, you'll be forced to trade for a Pokémon already knowing the move or restart your game. This was fixed in Yellow, in which you'll simply be let in with less Safari Balls than usual.

Psychic's only weaknesses are Bug and Ghost-type attacks, but the only Bug moves in these games are incredibly weak while Ghost is bugged so it has no effect on Psychic-types. Even when the bug is removed, Ghosts only have two offensive moves here; the feeble Lick and the Fixed Damage Attack Night Shade.

Roar and Whirlwind's only effect is to end battles with wild Pokémon. The "Run" command does it for free without requiring a moveslot and will usually work unless your active Pokémon has a low Speed stat. Later generations improved these moves by making them Switch Out Moves in trainer battles.

Focus Energy is supposed to increase the chance of the user landing a Critical Hit by 25%, but it's glitched to instead lower it to 1/4 of the original value.

Utility Weapon: Several moves have uses outside of battle that can be utilized to get around obstacles, as transportation, or even healing.

HM01 Cut removes certain trees and tall grass that is in front of you. The trees and grass will grow back after you leave the area.

TM28 Dig will take you to the last Pokémon Center you visited if used in a cave.

TM30 Teleport will take you to the last healing spot (Pokémon Center or your house) you visited when used outside (but not in a town/city).

TM41 Softboiled will transfer 20% of the owner's HP to another Pokémon.

Warm-Up Boss: Brock. Due to type advantages, a Squirtle or Bulbasaur trainer will be able to wipe the floor with him. Even a Charmander trainer can get around the type disadvantage due to both of Brock's Mons having a low Special stat and no actual Rock-type moves. You just need to beware of damaging Onix while using Bide.

Warp Whistle: The move Fly will allow you to return to any Pokémon Center you've already visited when used outside of battle. It can only be used outdoors, however.

We Can Rule Together: The Rocket grunt at the end of Cerulean Bridge wishes to recruit you into Team Rocket after seeing you battle.

The map is naturally designed to send you back to your hometown of Pallet after you get the Volcano Badge.

Viridian City, the first town you arrive at after Pallet, is also the location of the 8th Gym and where the road to the Indigo Plateau starts.

Whip It Good: The Ace Trainers (then named Cooltrainers), Tamers, Rocket Grunts, Cue Balls, and Sabrina all have whips in their battle sprites.

Tropes used in Yellow

Yup, they made a video-game adaptation of an anime adaptation.

American Kirby is Hardcore: The American boxart has a Pikachu with a face that means serious businesses; the Japanese art is just a happy normal Pikachu.

Adaptational Heroism: Damien isn't as much of an uncaring Jerkass as he is in the anime, as he actively knows he's a lousy trainer and figures his Charmander deserves better.

Art Shifted Sequel: This is the first game where the sprites for Pokémon are modeled after the animé. All future games would follow suit.

Canon Discontinuity: Pretty much every change in this version was ignored by Pokémon Gold and Silver, which instead derived everything Kanto-based from Red and Blue aside from Red's team (Pikachu + three starters). FireRed and LeafGreen also incorporate very little of Yellow's gameplay. Among the few exceptions would be Pikachu's "relationship" with the Player Character, which served as a prototype of Gold and Silver's Friendship mechanics, and certain elements of the revised move sets.

Canon Immigrant: A few characters from the anime can be found in early routes, like AJ and Giselle. Melanie and a much nicer Damien show up to give you Bulbasaur and Charmander as well. Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy show up too. And, of course, there's Jessie and James, who are recurring enemies. Because of game mechanics, though, they aren't named.

Clairvoyant Security Force: In the beginning of the game, you are presented with a Pokéball in Professor Oak's lab, intended to be your starting Pokémon. However, as soon as you touch it, your Rival bursts in and takes it for himself. (As a result, you're given Pikachu instead.)

Continuity Nod: As it's loosely based off the animé, it's no surprise there's a few.

If you talk to Pikachu right after catching a Pokémon, he'll make a V Sign, something Ash's Pikachu normally does in this situation.

Convenient Weakness Placement: Those mentioned from Red and Blue are still present, but more are added here. In particular, you can now catch a Mankey on Route 22 near Viridian City, and the Nidoran in the same area can now learn Double Kick a lot sooner. These changes give the player access to invaluable Fighting-type moves, extremely helpful when battling Brock, whose Rock/Ground-types are immune or resistant to all of Pikachu's moves. Thus, the player now has a fighting chance against Brock, since you cannot proceed to Mt. Moon without the Boulder Badge.

Disc One Nuke: Pikachu himself. Having access to Thundershock, a STAB move and one that inflicts paralysis about 10% of the time, right at the start means that Pikachu can steamroller most of the early game, with the sole exception of Brock. In comparison, the three starters from Red and Blue need to be at least level 8 to get their first STAB move.

Dynamic Difficulty: Subtle example in the form of what your Rival evolves his Eevee into depending on how you do in your first two battles against him. (Win both, and he evolves it into a Jolteon, which is resistant to your Pikachu's electric attacks. Win one, and he evolves it into a Flareon, which is neutral to your Pikachu's electric attacks. Lose both, and he evolves it into Vaporeon, which is weak against your Pikachu's electric attacks.)

If you interact with the Jigglypuff in the Pewter City Pokémon Center, Pikachu will fall asleep. However, you won't be able to heal your party until you wake him up by talking to him, or exit the Pokémon Center and come back in, as Nurse Joy will just say "It looks very content asleep." Trying to deposit him in the PC will result in an error message as well.

If you talk to Pikachu after a battle triggered by using a fishing rod, he'll have a bucket on his head.

If you talk to Pikachu immediately after he learns Thunder or Thunderbolt, he'll shock you. Oddly, the sound effect used is for the move Thunder Wave.

Four Is Death: You will run into the infamous Jessie & James a total of four times in this version of Pokemon. They take the place of several Rocket Grunts in key TR operations, including the first two instances where you meet their boss Giovanni. note Specifically, Jessie & James first pop up at Mt. Moon, just past the Super Nerd with the Pokémon fossils and right before the exit, in an attempt to take the fossil you earned; the Rocket trainer prior to the Super Nerd is no longer there as a result. They then replace the two Rockets guarding the door to Giovanni's office at the bottom of the Team Rocket hideout in Celadon City (the door will already be open, but Jessie & James will rush you once you step off the elevator; you need to defeat them to even explore the floor, much less challenge Giovanni). Their third appearance is at the top of Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town after you get past the ghost Marowak, taking the job of the original three Rockets of holding Fuji hostage (at this point, Ekans and Koffing will have evolved, but they are still pushovers). Their final appearance is in the hallway to the Silph Co. boardroom and the second encounter with Giovanni, past the room with Blue/Gary waiting to fight you (his Eevee will be evolved at this point) and the employee holding the Lapras, replacing the sole Rocket in front of the door; again, they will ambush you once you start down the hall. They do not return for the final encounter with their boss in Viridian City.

Game-Breaking Bug: Missingno. in Red/Blue, while it corrupted the player's Hall of Fame data and using it in battles was ill-advised, was still very helpful since it duplicated the 6th item in the player's Bag. Missingno. in Yellow will normally freeze the game, and that's one of its more harmless effects on the player's game.

Idle Animation: Pikachu will start to look around randomly if you leave your character alone for a while, or jump or spin around after you jump down a ledge and leave Pikachu above.

Lost Forever: If you trade your starting Pikachu away and then trade it back, it won't follow you anymore nor will it have a mood you can check on.

The first default name listed for the player character and rival are Ash and Gary, respectively.

The Weedle evolutionary line is not available, referencing Ash miserably failing to catch them early on.note Any Yellow player who still wants these Pokemon will have no choice but to trade with one of the other two versions to obtain them.

The Ekans, Koffing, and Meowth lines cannot be caught since they are owned by the Team Rocket Trionote Again, obtaining these Pokemon and their evolved forms requires trading with Red or Blue. Said trio is also a recurring mini-boss (Ekans and Koffing evolve for the final two encounters with Jessie and James at the Pokemon Tower and Silph Co.).

Pikachu is your starter, will walk behind you in the overworld, and refuse to evolve into Raichu (this part can be subverted by trading Pikachu to another game), just like with Ash. Its cry is even replaced with Pokémon Speak provided by its anime voice actor, Ikue Otani.

The original three starters can be obtained from NPCs in situations similar to how Ash got his.

Brock, Misty, and the rival use their anime designs.

The Gym Leaders' teams have been edited to copy/resemble their anime counterparts. This includes cutting Lt. Surge's team down to only Raichu (and raising its level to 28) and giving Giovanni a Persian for all of his battles.

Privileged Rival: Played up even more than in the original games, as now your Rival will force his way past you to take the Pokémon (Eevee) that was supposed to be yours, leaving you with a freshly caught, completely untamed, and, at least in terms of long-term battle potential, weaker Pikachu.

Recurring Boss: In addition to the two from the original two games (Blue/Gary and Giovanni), this installment adds Team Rocket's Jessie & James as a recurring opponent. They replace a few unnamed Team Rocket grunts in certain parts of the game, including both times you confront Giovanni when he's leading Team Rocket (Jessie & James will not show up for your final encounter with Giovanni in the Viridian City Gym, when you face him for the Earth Badge and the ability to proceed to the end of the game). These two aren't that much better than their anime counterparts at this point of the show's run or the regular grunts (they have Ekans, Koffing, and Meowth for each of their fights, with Ekans and Koffing evolved for later), but they will always show up without warning, though viewers of the anime can anticipate when to see them.

Sequel Difficulty Spike: Possibly due to the fact that this is the sole installment in the mobile Pokemon games to give you the opportunity to obtain all three starter Pokemon from that generation without trading, they've ramped up the difficulty of some parts of the game.

Because your starter is a Pikachu, you're likely going to have a much tougher time dealing with Brock than in Red and Blue. Fortunately, Nidoran learns Double Kick at a lower level than Red and Blue, you now have the option to pick up a Mankey on Route 22, and they dropped the levels of the Pokemon of Brock and his Junior Trainer down by two each (they still have the same Pokemon as Red/Blue and the anime, but Geodude is now Lv. 10 instead of 12 and Onix Lv. 12 instead of 14.

The last four Gym leaders had their levels buffed to be in the fifties. Most noticeable with Koga, as his team was in the mid-thirties in Red and Blue. This is especially jarring since the player will be coming off facing Erika, whose highest-leveled Pokémon was a level 32 Gloom.

In general, the NPCs took more advantage of TMs after largely relying on their Pokémon's natural learnsets in Red and Blue.

Special notice goes to the Elite Four. In the original games, none of their Pokémon knew TM moves, except for Bruno's Machamp and Agatha's second!Gengar who respectively knew Fissure and Toxic. In Yellow, at least one Pokémon per member knows a minimum of one TM move (or in some cases an an HM move; Lorelei has a Slowbro with both), most notably Lance's Dragonite who knows Blizzard, Thunder and Fire Blast.

Starter Mon: Pikachu, just like the anime. Also, uniquely for the series to date, you can get the Red/Blue starters as well (which also follows the anime.)

Surfer Dude: If Pikachu knows Surf (which is unlockable by using Pokémon Stadium), his field sprite for using the move will be him on a Surf Board. This also unlocks an Excitebike clone titled "Pikachu's Beach", which is accessible from a house on Route 19. This is unlocked by default in the Virtual Console re-release.

Wake-Up Call Boss: Surprisingly, Misty serves as the wake-up call here. Several nifty tricks were added to help you get past Brock (which is necessary, as each of his mons are immune or resistant to everything a reasonably leveled Pikachu can throw at it by this point and you have to defeat him to continue with the game past Pewter City.) Most players will go into Cerulean City Gym with a spring in their step, ready to wipe the floor with Misty's Water-types using their juiced up Pikachu. They are in for a world of hurt, as Misty's Pokémon are ludicrously over-leveled (she's actually the only boss besides the Elite Four to have the exact same Pokemon from the other versions, but they're smarter here). Her Starmie in particular has ridiculous numbers of hit points and can absorb 3+ super-effective Thundershocks while sweeping your entire team in one shot apiece.

WaterBlue and ElectricYellow Versions not included.note A trademark for "WaterBlue" was filed by Nintendo, though.

Adult Fear: Lostelle's father is sick with worry that she hasn't returned home yet. You find her weeping, lost deep in a forest, being pursued by a wild Hypno.

All Bikers Are Hells Angels: You find one of the Sevii Islands which has been taken over by a Hells Angels style biker gang and naturally, it is up to you to get rid of them.

Artistic Age: While still stated to be 11-years-old like in the original games, Red and the rival both look at least a few years older with their slender, somewhat adult-like proportions and less childish facial structures. Leaf as well seems to be a bit more developed in official artwork than most 11-year-old girls.

Ascended Meme: Many new features and secrets seem to call back to the wild rumors that surrounded the original games. For instance, Bill granting you access to a new area (in this case, the Sevii Islands) and the ability to find something by the truck near the S.S. Anne.

Automatic New Game: These games are the first in the series to automatically proceed to a new game from the title screen if there is no save file is present.

Beef Gate: The Diglett's Cave example from the originals returns and is even harder this time around. Not only are the Diglett and Dugtrio just as strong as before, they now come with the ability Arena Trap, which prevents you from fleeing.

Bonus Boss: The legendary Pokémon from the originals return in this role, and are joined by one of the Johto legendary beasts once you've received the National Dex. The one that appears is the one which is strong against whatever starter you chose (Entei for Bulbasaur, Suicune for Charmander, and Raikou for Squirtle.)

Boss Remix: When battling a legendary Pokémon, the standard battle theme is played at a higher pitch.

Gambler-class trainers had their titles changed to gamer, leading to things like, "I'm a rambling, gaming dude!" That subverted rhyme aside, the change is less jarring considering that gambling is often referred to as "gaming" nowadays (i.e. Indian gaming, the Las Vegas Gaming Commission, etc.).

Lavender Town's Pokémon Tower had a possessed woman say "Give... me... your... all"; contrast with the original line, which is "Give... me... your... soul." This particular instance of Bowdlerization seems a bit unpredictable, as there's another woman whose line remains as "Give... me... blood." in all versions.

Rocket Grunts called you a little rat in the original version, which was changed to a little mouse in the remakes.

Console Cameo: Instead of an SNES in the player's bedroom from the original Red and Blue, there is now NES.

Crutch Character: As mentioned above, the Bug-types Butterfree and Beedrill still qualify. However, Butterfree gets an even bigger boost now thanks to its "Compound Eyes" ability. This makes its status effect inducing "powder" attacks significantly more accurate. It can now cripple opposing Pokémon with Paralysis and Poison more easily and put wild Pokémon to Sleep with greater success, making them easier to catch. The addition of this ability takes it from a crutch to near-Disc One Nuke territory.

Damn You, Muscle Memory: Players who rushed to the top floor of the Celadon Department Store to buy drinks for the thirsty guards will be disappointed since the guards in FRLG accept hot tea instead, which is obtained from an old lady in the building next to the Pokémon Center.

Due to the Dead: On Five Island, there is a memorial for a dead Onix nicknamed Tectonix. The Player can set down a lemonade next to the one that is already there. This earns gratitude from the Trainer next to you, and he gives you TM42 Facade as a thanks.

When it comes to the music, FireRed and LeafGreen are the only games post-Ruby and Sapphire not to have the Pokémart theme introduced in the Hoenn games and the only post-Ruby and Sapphire games not to include the expanded portion of the Hall of Fame theme introduced in Ruby and Sapphire. Even the remakes of Pokémon Gold and Silver uses them (to the point that there's a GB Sounds equivalent of the Pokémart theme). It's also the only remakes to recycle the gym theme from the mainline generation games. All the other remakes either have their own remix of the theme (in the case of HeartGold/SoulSilver) or uses an updated version of the original game's incarnation (in the case of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire).

The ability to teach the final forms of your starter Pokémon Frenzy Plant, Blast Burn or Hydro Cannon was introduced within these games. Unlike within later generations, only the Kanto starters could learn them.

The remakes are the only remakes not to include a duplicate of the main game's Battle Tower/Battle Frontier analogue. HeartGold and SoulSilver has the resident Battle Tower replaced with the duplicate of the Sinnoh Battle Frontier while Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire replaces the Battle Tower of the original games with a replica of Kalos' Battle Maisonnote The Hoenn Battle Frontier's still canon, as well as Hoenn's original Battle Tower. They had just been retconned into being under development by the time the games take place.

The remakes are the only remakes where the opposite gendered player character doesn't appear in-story, and thus, the only games where you don't get to see the canon names of both playable characters in-game. HeartGold and SoulSilver adds the opposite gendered playable character into the story (as well as retcons the canon name of the male playable character) and the original opposite gendered playable character of Ruby and Sapphire reprises their role as a rival in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

These remakes are the only remakes to provide the original game's TMs through the usage of move tutors that are willing to teach your Pokémon the move once for free. The only games to repeat this are Pokémon XD and Pokémon Emerald, but even then, only for the move tutor moves from this game (assuming it's not available within Emerald's Battle Frontier as well). Future games use their respective battle facilities in order to provide moves previously obtainable via TMs or HMs.

These are the only remakes to make some non-native legendary Pokémon event exclusive (as Ho-Oh and Lugia can only be captured in these games via an event).

These are the only remakes not to alter the HM list and the only remakes that doesn't give field effects back to moves that previously had them. Downplayed as the original games are the only ones not to have moves with field effects exclusive to them and the first games that don't have HMs unique to them.

When a Pokémon with evolutionary forms introduced after Generation 1 attempts to evolve, it will automatically stop evolving until the player obtained the National Dex. Though it made the remakes more faithful to the originals, this mechanic proved unpopular, so the later remakes simply added any evolutionary forms introduced in later generation to the dex and allowed them to evolve, though items required for evolution were usually hidden until the post-game. Later games let you get those by trading and use them, the Pokemon just won't appear in the Pokedex, this game prohibits that too, and you can't even trade in from the Hoenn games until the post game either, nor can you use another Kanto game as an intermediary as even in this case, the game will prevent you from accepting trades involving any non-Kanto Pokémon or eggs of any origin.

Extended Gameplay: After defeating the Elite Four, the Sevii Islands start opening more so than after Blaine was defeated. The islands are one of the few places in the third generation games where you can capture Johto Pokémon. This will also open up a daycare where you can breed your Pokemon. Your reward for traveling through and completing the Sevii Islands is the ability to trade with Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.

Fauxlosophic Narration: The cave in Mt Ember where the Ruby is found contains the following inscription, in braille: "Everything has meaning. Existence has meaning. Being alive has meaning. Have dreams Use power." This doesn't relate to the game's plot or themes in any way at all, and just seems there for the sake of it. Contrast the braille inscription near the Sapphire, which is an elaborate metaphor for cross-version trading, which the gems enable you to do. This could be a hilarious subversion as within the confines of the game, unlike its counterpart, the text has absolutely no meaning despite what it preaches.

Professor Oak insists on explaining how a Pokémon battle works during your initial battle with your Rival, and before you even play the game, there are mandatory introductory screens showing you which buttons do what and telling you about the world of Pokémon in even greater detail than Professor Oak.

In Pallet Town, a certain woman wants to show you what's written on a newly-placed sign near the lab. You will not be able to leave Pallet Town unless you either read the sign or hear her recite what it says — and all it says is "Press Start to open the menu".

Fun with Palindromes: The passwords for the Rocket Headquarters on Five Island are "GOLDEEN need log" and "Yes, nah, CHANSEY".

Gameplay and Story Segregation: There's one ranger on Seven Island who claims that city trainers (meaning trainers from Kanto) "sure are tough". This is despite the fact that the Sevii Islands are the Extended Gameplay, so any trainers living on them are guaranteed to be inherently better than nearly any Kanto trainer.

Last Disc Magic: These games started a trend of including a late-game move tutor who will teach your fully evolved starter (and only your fully evolved starter) an elemental version of Hyper Beam depending on your starter's type. In FR/LG, the tutor in question is located on the Sevii Islands which are inaccessible until you defeat Blaine, the 7th gym leader.

Lethal Lava Land: Downplayed with Mt. Ember on One Island. It's stated to be a volcano and various Fire-types can be found there, but there is no lava present.

Lost Woods: The Berry Forest on Three Island. You have to venture out here to find a girl with an unfortunate name—Lostelle.

Mythology Gag: During the credits, the Generation 1 mascots are shown changing from the in-game sprites to poses they had on the Japanese boxart of their respective games.

No Name Given: The female player character doesn't have an official name. Most fans have settled on Leaf.

Now, Where Was I Going Again?: Resuming your saved game gives you a quick recap about some of the things you were doing before you saved and quit.

Optional Stealth: If you run, you will draw the attention of most trainers. They will turn to the side you are about to pass them by and challenge you to a battle. Walking allows the player a chance to slip by them.

Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The speech text for most non-player characters in non-Japanese versions is color-coded this way - males will have blue text and females will have red text.

Playable Epilogue: Upgrades the original games' End Game Plus into one. Cerulean Cave still opens the same way, but there are other changes as well. More of the Sevii Islands open up for exploration and you can start to catch Pokémon not native to Kanto.

Progressively Prettier: Just about every character was upgraded in attractiveness from the originals, but especially Red and Blue. They went from being two average looking, if maybe a bit scrawny, looking eleven-year-old boys to Bishōnen who look at least a few years older than their listed age.

Retcon: In the original versions, there were only 151 known Pokémon in the whole world. In the Game Boy Advance remakes, this was changed to there being only 151 Pokémon known to inhabit the Kanto region.

Rule of Seven: The Sevii Islands are seven normally accessible islands (though a certain event lets you access two more) and they were all created in 7 days, according to a lady on Quest Island, the seventh island. Quest Island itself also houses the seven botany-themed Tanoby Chambers, which are chock full of Unown and shrouded in mystery. Additionally, there are seven beta "Sevii Islands" that are not accessible during normal gameplay.

Schrödinger's Player Character: Along with Crystal, these games are the only ones in the series to date that play this straight. Whoever you do not choose out of Red and Leaf does not appear in the game at all.

Significant Anagram: "Tanoby" is an anagram of "botany" and the Tanoby Chambers are named after plants. The Japanese name is an anagram of Nanakusa and the chambers are named after Nanakusa-no-sekku.

Temple of Doom: The Tanoby Ruins. Once again rather tame, because after completing a small puzzle, the player has access to a series of seven shrines, where they can encounter 28 different forms of the Pokémon Unown.

The Maze: Lost Cave in the Sevii Islands. One wrong move will send you right back to the entry room.

Unfortunate Name: The lost daughter of the Game Corner owner on Three Island is named Lostelle.

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